Church key openers
"Church key" bottle openers are one of the most basic and most common bottle openers. The difference in size and shape varies but generally follows the same lines. The empty space on the handle is used by most companies as advertising space by engraving their logo or the name of a product on the opener. Being cheap and reliable, church key openers are used by many companies for marketing. Origin of the term The church key (or churchkey) is an American term for various kinds of bottle openers. This type of bottle opener got its name from the shape of the "head" as they resemble the heads of large keys such as the ones that were traditionally used to lock and unlock church doors. Types of church key openers Because of the differences between church key openers we've created a coding system '''of our own. This allows us to identify each opener. Old '''openers in the shape of beer bottles or flat, thin openers also fall into the category of church keys. The coding * common (ckC) ** common long (ckCL) ** common new (ckCN) ** common wide (ckCW) ** common rounded (ckCR) *** common rounded modified (ckCRM) ** common big (ckCB) *** common big modified (ckCBM) ** common flat (ckCF) ** common modified (ckCM) * American (ckA) * in the shape of a bottle (ckB) * * flat (ckF) * church key-like openers (ckL) *Not to be confused with openers in the shape of a bottle that are not church keys. Church keys and us Unless you've just recently moved into a new place you most probably have one or two church keys lying around the house, at the bottoms of drawers or hung up on the wall of your garage. Some of the first openers in our collection were a couple of old Metalo Chim Brașov ckCWs from my grandmother's. Simple church keys are quite common, and we've managed to gather around 100 different ones in total. After some time it became hard to memorize all the different names and designs and slowly we've acquired more extras than we know what to do with, but this page proved to be extremely helpful to us and we hope that we will be able to help some of you as well! Putting them on display also proved to be a challenge. We want the collection to always look as perfect as it can be, but this gets extremely hard when you have to organize all 100 church keys so that they are all level and they all start and end at the same height... Especially if we also want to have them in alphabetical order. But we've managed so far and hope to continue like this in the future too! Church keys are kept on magnetic tool holders we buy from the local supermarket. CkC'''s and all their variants are arranged in a zigzag pattern, thus we can save a lot of space and put '''up to 22 on a single tool holder, while ckB's and '''ckF's fit nicely one next to the other. List of Church key openers in our collection You can also view the gallery of church key openers. In alphabetical order: Mineral waters * Apollinaris - '''ckCB * Elisabethen-Quelle - ckCB * Fachingen - 2 types: ** ckF (version 1, small hole) ** ckF (version 2, large hole) * Franken-Brunnen - ckC * Gerolsteiner -'' ckCL''' * Hirsch-Quelle - ckCB * Kondrauer ''- ''ckC * Primusquelle Adelholzen'' -''' 'ckCB' * Wildunger Helenenquelle - ckC Sodas * Almdudler - ckC * Canada Dry - ckC * Coca Cola - 3 types: ** Trink Coca Cola (ckC) ** TRINK Coca Cola (ckC) ** Trink Coca Cola (ckCR) * Corona - ckL * Frucade - ckC * Pepsi - ckC * Pepsi Cola - ckC Beers * Ayinger Bier - ckC * Bayreuther Bierbrauerei AG - 2 types: ** ckL (version 1, wide body, smaller size) ** ckL (version 2, slim body, bigger size) * Binding Bier - ckC * Bitte ein Bit - ckC * Brauerei Gehladming (?) - ckCR * Brauerei Schladming - ckC * Budweiser Budvar - ckB * Dinkelacker - ckC * Distelhäuser - ckCF * Edelweiss - ckCL * Eichener Pils - ckC * Fürstenberg Donaueschingen - ckCL * Gambrinus - ckB * Gösser Bier '''- 2 types: ** ckCR ** ckCRM * Hacker-Pschorr München - '''ckC * Hackerbräu München - ckC * Henninger Bräu Frankfurt/Main - ckC * Herforder Pils- ckC * Hofbrauhäus München - ckC * Holsten-Bier - ckC * Hubertus Bräu - 2 types: ** ckC ** ckCR * Jöst (?) - ckC * Kauzen Bier - 2 types: ** ckC ** ckCL * Kozel - ckB * Krombacher - ckCL * Licher - ckC * Licher Bier - ckC * Löwenbräu - ckC * Löwenbräu München - ckC * Löwenbräu SEIT 1383 - ckC * Mönchshof-Bräu - ckC * Moninger - ckC * Münster Bier - ckC * Patrizier - ckC * Paulaner München - 2 types: ** ckCB (version 1) ** ckCB (version 2) * Pilsner Urquell '''- 2 types: ** ckB (version 1) ** ckB (version 2) * '''Puntigamer Bier - 2 types: ** ckC ** ckCR * Radhos - ckB * Reininghaus Bier - ckCR * Ritter Pils - ckC * Saliter-Milch - ckC * Saliter-Sahne - ckC '''(2 types) * Schäffbräu - '''ckCF * Schwechater Bier - ckCR * Sömenbrauerei Passau (?) - ckC * Spalter Bier - ckC * Spaten-Bräu München - ckA * Staropramen - ckB * Steigl - ckC * Steiner Biere - ckC * Stern - ckCF * Thurn und Taxis Biere - ckCL * Tucher - ckC * Villacher Bier - ckCR * Weihenstephan - ckC * Wolfra - ckCB * Würzburger Hofbräu - ckC Others * Fackelmann - ckC and ckCN * landgold - ckC * Metalo Chim Brașov - 5 types: ** ckCW (common logo, horizontal) ** ckCW (common logo, vertical) ** ckCW ** ckCW ** ckF * unknown logos * blank - 5 types: ** ckC (version 1, with hole) ** ckC (version 2, without hole) ** ckCL ** ckCW ** Old metal church key-like bottle opener - ckL * [[Custom church key opener|custom (VOP and VSP)]] - ckC Category:Church key